


Ardent

by KingBirds



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M, Hisagi as Colonel Fitzwilliam, Hisana and Byakuya as Aunt and Uncle Gardiner, I had to make a chart for this casting, I'm keeping them in their original character, Ichigo as Bingley, Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice AU, Jinta and Yuzu as Mr. and Mrs. Hurst, Just Roll With It, Juushiro and Kyoraku as Mr. and Mrs. Bennet respectively, Kiyone as Kitty, Lol this casting, Mary what is your literary purpose?, Mayuri as Lady Catherine, Momo as Georgiana, Nanao as Mary, Nemu as Lady Anne, OKAY LISTEN, Rangiku as Jane, Renji as Mr. Collins, Rukia as Elizabeth, Sorry Gin but you're Wickham, Sorry Karin but your Caroline, Sorry Orihime but you're Lydia, Tatsuki as Charlotte, This is crack, Toshiro as Darcy, Yes Really, bear with me, boujee crack, but this is a special kind of it, don't worry about the OOCness, granted, if you will, mostly - Freeform, not the JA characters, you can call most everything I write crack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29881761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingBirds/pseuds/KingBirds
Summary: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. And so on, and so forth. A HitsuRuki retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
Relationships: Hitsugaya Toushirou/Kuchiki Rukia, Kurosaki Ichigo/Matsumoto Rangiku
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Ardent

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying to work out a plot hole in TWATL so that's on hold until I figure it out. I might have read P&P one too many times. Don't you think Hitsugaya/Rukia would make a good Darcy/Elizabeth? Right? Actually, IchiRuki might be better and I encourage someone to write THAT version. Maybe I will write that version, if it doesn't already exist. Anyway. We're following the book and sampling from Joe Wright's 2005 adaptation, because it's my favourite and I have the screenplay for it.
> 
> Also, forgive my attempt at Victorian prose, I'm trying.

* * *

“My dear Juushiro,” Kyoraku said to his husband one day, “Have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?”

Ukitake looked up at him. “Why are you talking like that?” he asked. “And no, has it been?”

“So I have heard.”

“From who?”

“Who else?”

No sooner had Kyoraku said this that the study door was pushed open. In came Orihime, their youngest child and from whom Kyoraku had heard about Netherfield Park being let at last.

“Fathers,” she said, smiling beguilingly. She was holding a serving tray with a modest but pretty arrangement of tea and snacks, no doubt an excuse and a peace offering for interrupting them in the study. “Do you have a moment?”

Kyoraku and Ukitake exchanged a glance.

“For you, my dear, of course,” Kyoraku said to her warmly.

Orihime laid the tray down and settled into a vacant armchair. “Have you heard? Netherfield Park has been—”

“Let at last,” the two men finished for her.

She pouted. “Well, don’t you want to know who’s taken it?”

Kyoraku and Ukitake exchanged another glance. Ukitake hid his smile behind his newspaper. The last of five daughters, Orihime had been adopted into the family at a rare time that the two men _hadn’t_ been thinking about adopting another child. But she had been such a sweet and endearing girl with such tragic circumstances that they couldn’t bear to leave her behind. She hadn’t grown up with their other children, which was perhaps the reason she continued to be so earnest and initiative, even after she had been part of the family for several years now. Knowing this, the two men never turned her down or tried to dissuade her. As a result, she had become rather spoilt, though still sweet.

“If you want to tell us, dear, we will listen,” Kyoraku told her, perusing the snacks in the tray.

Orihime, happy to relay what she knew, said:

“Well, Chizuru told me that it was taken by a man of large fortune from the north, that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place and was so delighted with it that he agreed to see the place immediately. She said he’s supposed to take possession before the end of the month and some of his servants will be in the house by the end of next week.”

As was her habit for long and unending sentences, Orihime was slightly out of breath by the end of this.

“What’s his name?” Kyoraku asked her.

“Kurosaki.”

“Is he married or single?” Ukitake asked next.

“Single!” she replied with a bashful but ultimately excited smile. “A large fortune _and_ single. Isn’t that wonderful?”

For the third time, Kyoraku and Ukitake exchanged a glance that went completely over her head.

“Great for him, I’m sure,” Kyoraku said lightly. “What’s it got to do with us?”

Orihime began to wring her hands in her lap, an unfortunate habit learned in early childhood. “What I mean to say is, wouldn’t it be wonderful if he came here looking for a wife? And where better to look than here? I’m sure myself and any one of my sisters would be happy to marry him.”

“Oh?” Ukitake arched an eyebrow at her from over the top of his newspaper. “Did he come here to marry you? You should have told us sooner.”

By now catching onto the fact that they were making fun of her, Orihime became a little less anxious at her fathers’ teasing, looking at them with a mixture of exasperation and humour. “How could he have come here to marry me?” she exclaimed, face very bright. “I’ve never met him! But we probably will, won’t we? It’s a small town, after all. And if he really is as charming as Chizuru makes him out to be, then won’t it be wonderful to settle down comfortably right here? You’ll visit him, won’t you?” she implored the two of them, lovely in her earnestness.

“Must we?” Ukitake looked over at Kyoraku. “What do you think?”

“Old men like us? I’m not sure I have the energy. Orihime, you can go with your sisters, lest Kurosaki falls in love with my dear Juushiro and doom you all.”

“This is going to be a thing now?” Ukitake deadpanned, but the light colour on his face betrayed him. “You flatter me.”

Orihime, always terrible at figuring out to what extent her fathers were being serious or not, tried again. “Please, Fathers, you _must_ go. The both of you.”

You see, the two men on their own could not be considered extraordinary, neither one very rich or accomplished, but when together, Ukitake’s scholarliness and Kyoraku’s charisma could charm any potential suitor.

“Sounds far too tedious,” Kyoraku commented with a theatrical sigh. Ukitake nodded in agreement.

Somewhat desperate now, Orihime said, “Fathers, you have to go! Think of your daughters! Not just me, but of the suitors you can arrange for the other girls if one of us gets married to Kurosaki. Tatsuki’s parents are determined to go, which says a lot, give that they never go visit anyone. If you don’t go, then it will be impossible for us girls to visit him.”

“Nonsense,” Kyoraky scoffed. “Kurosaki will be delighted to see you. I’ll even send a few lines with you to give my hearty consent to his marrying whichever of you he chooses. Of course, I may have to put in a good word for my Nanao.”

Orihime sighed. “Nanao is as lovely as anyone but you can’t favour her in this situation,” she said, and then also cautioned Ukitake, “And you can’t do the same for Rukia. You have to give us all an equal chance.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Ukitake frowned at the idea. “How could I ever want to get rid of our Rukia?”

Orihime sank back into the armchair, a touch dramatic. “Lord help us,” she lamented in jest. “Me and my poor sisters.”

“My poor sisters and _I_ ,” Kyoraku corrected her unhelpfully.

Despite what they had led Orihime to believe, Ukitake and Kyoraku were among the earliest of those who waited on Mr. Kurosaki when he arrived. Though they usually found their daughters’ antics endlessly entertaining, they would never put any of them at a disadvantage in this way and had always intended to visit him. Though, because they were equal parts teasing a capricious, they maintained until the end that they would not go, causing their daughters much distress, and till the evening after the visit was paid, the girls had no knowledge of it. That is, until Kyoraku, observing his second daughter employed in drawing an amusing caricature of what he had come to learn was almost always rabbits, said to her:

“I hope Mr. Kurosaki will like it, Rukia.”

“We may never know,” Orihime sighed disappointedly, stitching on her embroidery hoop forlornly. “She could be the most accomplished artist in the world and he would never know because you won’t visit him.”

Rukia, unaware of how or why she had become caught up in this, attempted to comfort her: “We can still meet him at the assemblies. Chizuru has promised to introduce him to us.”

“That’s very kind of her,” Orihime replied, smartly adding, “But I’m sure that she, just like any other young lady, won’t want to risk her own chances.” And she finished by pouting in her fathers’ direction.

Kyoraku responded by teasingly saying, “If you keep making that expression, your face will freeze like that.”

Orihime quickly dropped the expression, bringing up a hand to touch her skin delicately to make sure. Put out, she turned to one of her sisters and gently scolded, “Please stop coughing like that Kiyone, I have a headache.”

“Now, now,” Ukitake said, “Kiyone can’t help it. They’re coughs, after all.”

Kiyone frowned between the two of them. “It’s not like I cough for fun,” she grumbled.

Ukitake turned to Rukia. “When is the next ball, Rukia?”

“Two weeks from now,” she replied after a moment of thoughtfulness.

Orihime gasped. “That’s right! Chizuru won’t even be back before then, how can she introduce us to someone she doesn’t yet know herself?”

Kyoraku chuckled. “Then, my dear, you may have the advantage of introducing Mr. Kurosaki to _her_.”

“Nonsense,” she replied mulishly. “You’re just making fun of me again, you know I am not acquainted with him.”

“How could I ever do such a thing?” he asked with faux insult. Beside him, Ukitake covered a laugh with a cough. Nanao snorted delicately where she was sitting by the piano and Rukia exchanged a glance with Rangiku. Kiyone was busy trying to restrain her coughing.

“It’s true,” Ukitake noted absently, “Two weeks is no kind of acquaintance. But if you don’t introduce her, someone else inevitably will. Chizuru must have her chance, after all, and you will be a good friend to her by doing so. Of course, if you don’t, then one of us will.”

The other four girls froze at this short declaration, turning to stare at him.

Orihime didn’t notice, sniffing delicately. “Nonsense.”

“She calls it nonsense,” Kyoraku said forlornly to Ukitake. “Even though these things are the fundamental pillars of society. What do you think, Nanao?”

Nanao scoffed. “You’re as pretentious as the rest of them.”

“You wound me.”

“Before you two get into it, let us return to Mr. Kurosaki,” Ukitake interrupted them.

“I am a little sick of Mr. Kurosaki,” Orihime admitted petulantly.

Ukitake and Kyoraku exchanged a glance. “I am sorry to hear that,” Kyoraku said sincerely. “Why didn’t you tell us before? If we had known that this morning, Juushiro and I would have certainly not visited him. How unlucky. But, as we have already paid the visit, we definitely cannot escape the acquaintance now.”

This little ruse between the two men was well worth the astonishment of the five girls upon this revelation. Though Orihime had most wanted to know and meet this Mr. Kurosaki, the other girls were still relieved, and the room quickly erupted into excited chattering.

Ukitake patted his second youngest daughter on her shoulder, saying, “Now, Kiyone, you may cough as much as you please,” and he followed his husband out of the room, retreating to the relative peace and quiet of the study.

In the few days before Kurosaki returned their fathers’ visits, the girls tried their best to draw a description of the young man from them. They attacked them in various ways; with barefaced questions, ingenious suppositions, and distant surmises; but they eluded the skill of them all, keeping away in their study and not allowing even their favourite daughters inside.

With no other choice, they had to rely on the second-hand intelligence of their neighbour, Tatsuki, who fortunately had parents more willing to easily disclose this sort of thing.

“Mother and father seem to like him,” she told them flippantly, and listed off on her fingers: “Quite young, wonderfully handsome, extremely agreeable, and set to be at the next assembly with a large party.”

“He must be fond of dancing then,” Kiyone said smartly. “How nice.”

Then came the day that Kurosaki returned their fathers’ visit where he sat about ten minutes with them in the study. He had hoped to see the girls, of whose beauty he had heard much, as much as they wished to see him, but he saw only their fathers, one of which, Kyoraku maintained, was still easy on the eyes.

The girls were more fortunate, for they had the advantage of seeing him from an upper window, through which they discerned that he was rather tall, had bright orange hair, wore a black coat and rode a black horse.

But now that the tedious visits were over with, a swift invitation for dinner was dispatched. However, Nanao, who often overlooked the bulk of the domestic affairs, was in the midst of planning courses that were to do credit to her housekeeping when an answer arrived which deferred it all:

Mr. Kurosaki was obliged to be in town the following day, and consequently, was unable to accept the honour of their invitation.

The people whom Mr. Kurosaki’s existence had excited were quite disconcerted. They could not imagine what business he could have in town so soon after his arrival, and they began to fear that he might be always flying about from one place to another, and never settled at Netherfield as he ought to be.

Tatsuki was quick to reassure the five sisters a little by starting the idea of his being gone to London only to get a large party for the ball; and a report soon followed that Mr. Kurosaki was to bring twelve ladies and seven gentlemen with him to the assembly. The girls grieved over such a number of ladies, but were comforted the day before the ball by hearing that, instead of twelve, he had brought only four people altogether: his two sisters and brother-in-law, and his friend, a gentleman no one had ever heard of before but who would come to stir the biggest fuss out of them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)


End file.
